Today we hear a lot about the term Cloud computing. So what exactly is Cloud computing? Well, if we talk about Cloud computing it is nothing but a type of Internet-based computing. It provides shared processing of resources and data to computers and other devices on demand. Cloud is a model to enable ubiquitous, on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources like networks, servers, and storage and applications services. These services can then be rapidly applied and released with minimum management effort.
Cloud computing and storage applications enable users and enterprises to store and process their data in third-party data centers. Cloud Computing depends on the sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economy of scale, similar to a utility similar to the electricity grid over a network. Cloud computing allows enterprises to set up their applications and run them faster with better manageability and less maintenance. It has enabled IT sectors to rapidly adjust resources to meet changing and unplanned business demands. Cloud providers typically lead to unexpectedly high charges if administrators do not adapt to the right cloud pricing model.
Cloud computing is both easy and challenging at the same time. At times users who have ready access to capacity will use it a lot. And this results in some unintended consequences; instead of reducing IT costs, cloud computing can sometimes actually drive costs up. The reason for this is that users, when given unrestricted access to IT resources, tend to increase their consumption dramatically. And because the cloud is consumed as a variety of services many organizations find cloud expense management a new and very confusing challenge. Besides this, the hidden costs of cloud services that bypass central IT control run four to five times higher than the billed cost. Very easily, the cloud starts looking more like a threat than an opportunity. All this unrestricted access leads to “scary bills,” where cloud costs far exceed the promised cost savings.
Additionally, auto scaling one of the most appealing cloud-service features can also become major contributors to cloud cost overages if not managed properly. Clearly, we need to control the cost to avoid rising cloud expenditures. To get discount on cloud hosting plan, you can go for siteground coupon at selected hosting blog for more details. Cloud computing, to be effective, must encompass the entire system’s life cycle, from initial order through retirement.
So in this post, we have tried to give you the Top 5 ways to control rising cloud expenses.
Control access to the cloud
Well, the first method on our list to control the cloud expenses is controlling the Access. It is one of the most effective ways to control cloud costs. With this, you can closely manage and monitor access to the cloud. You must make sure that new clouds are approved and authorized by cloud-governance authorities. You can also set independent authorization requirements by the environment. So, for example, a user might require approval to deploy a system in AWS but not in a local VMware environment.
Expose cost before usage
In many cloud-management systems, users do not receive complete information about the relative costs.They are informed about the cost of different systems after they start using them. This is a grave mistake. One of the genuine and important steps to controlling cloud costs is exposing service costs to requestors before they begin using the services. You must allow the users to see the effect of different options such as additional CPU, memory, monitoring and so on. This encourages smarter decisions and prevents “gold plating.”
Set and enforce cloud-usage limits for roles/departments
Another important and critical step is to establish usage limits on the cloud. Cloud Usage limits can be enforced on all resources such as a number of servers, CPUs, memory, and storage, or total spending. Matching these quotas with business funding and budgets is an effective way to prevent unexpected cost rises. Besides this setting, the users know the cost of their ongoing consumption helps them understand financial impacts.
Implement chargeback/show back/shame back
You should be wise in managing your Cloud services. You simply can’t charge for what you can’t measure. Do not make the mistake of not keeping a track of your cloud costs and exposing them to the system consumers. The concept is called utility metering,show back and chargeback of virtualization or cloud IT resources is the same thing. The difference with chargeback is that an invoicing system ingests a report and the bill is generated for delivery to users. Show back cost reporting means charging back but this time without the last step of producing invoices.
Create a cloud “cleanup” policy
Automated Resource Expiration or System Life-Cycle Management is one of the most effective ways to limit runaway costs. This system is used to avoid VM sprawl and wasting resources that are no longer needed.An easy way of doing these in environments is to set a scheduled expiration date. For instance,infrastructure as a service and platform as service applications must be shut down when not in use. Moving back the rarely used applications and data to the internal data center. This is a way of retiring systems after a set period of time unless requestors actively renew them. Another approach is to monitoractivity and shutting down systems that are inactive for quite some time. The key to this is automated actions that can be employed by actions based on specific conditions.
Conclusion
The flexibility and ease of cloud environments is a blessing to Information Technology. But it comes with the downside of rising costs if the environments arenot monitored and managed properly. It is very important to use central resource management and provisions to keep a check on cloud expenditures. Doing this enables enterprises to set and enforce usage limits. By coupling cost visibility throughout the service life cycle cloud management today has become a critical tool for enterprises to limit cloud costs.
Photograph by Francisco Gonzalez